


Crazy little thing called love

by Banashee



Series: Somebody to Love (Phlint Verse) [2]
Category: Hawkeye (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Clint and Tony are Bros, Domestic Avengers, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Swearing, Team as Family, Tony Starks Coffee Machine with too much personality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-04 14:07:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21198905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Banashee/pseuds/Banashee
Summary: In which the Avengers grow together as a family, bad days and strange habits included.(...)“Phil, did you just taser the coffee machine?”“It had it coming.” Phil says, eyes still a bit wide and chest heaving.Clint puts away the knife he just pulled out of thin air and, very eloquently, asks, “Why in the fresh fuck do we need a coffee machine that talks? Why?”“Tony.” Steve shrugs, looking apologetically. Sadly, in this household, it explains a lot.(...)





	Crazy little thing called love

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone,   
good to have you back, and thanks for reading!
> 
> This one is mostly fun and fluff, but there are some heavy parts.   
PTSD, breif mention of a specific injury from the last story.
> 
> Can you tell from the titles I've been listening to a lot of Queen while writing?

**Crazy little thing called love**

The kitchen is full.

Which is kinda saying a lot, given the fact that there are roughly eight people who permanently live here – they're used to a full house. But today there are _many_ people.

Tony blinks, still on the phone with Pepper. It's too early in his opinion to deal with the latest Stark Industries Bullshit, but this is urgent, and he knows Pepper is just as annoyed as him, even though she is more polite about it.

"Okay, honestly they can go f-" he stops in his tracks – there are five children and two teenagers, amongst a group of vaguely familiar adults and yeah, right, Phil's family is here.

"Fluff themselves." Tony tries to rescue the f-bomb he was about to drop, and on the table, Barton snorts into his obnoxiously large cup of coffee.

Tony narrows his eyes at him. 'You making fun of me? Your swearing is just as bad if not worse than mine!' he signs while continuing his very unfulfilling conversation over the phone.

'Yes, which is why I am allowed to make fun of you.' Clint signs back, and remains completely unimpressed, keeps drinking coffee and steals a piece of pancake from Phil's plate.

Tony would love to flip him off, but again, kids.

So he sign's back, 'asshole' and gets a cheerful 'piece of shit' in response, and so it continues. Yeah okay so they're basically overgrown twelve year olds.

The good natured ribbing continues, and the girl with the pink, purple and blue hair shares a look with her sister (acid green mohawk, and yeah that one is new) while they giggle into their tea – well okay so they got that. Whatever, not Tony's fault.

He turns to the coffee machine – coffee always helps. It beeps at him in protest, and _yes_, alright, he was supposed to fix the damn thing... Again.

It has a mind of it's own and hates everyone.

Clint keeps signing offensive and hilarious shit at Tony, and he needs to stop himself from laughing out loud. Tony needs to disguise a bark of laughter as a cough, and he glares again, even as he hangs up and points his coffee spoon at Clint, flicking a few drops of liquid in his general direction.

“You are an awful human being, so screw you.”

“Didn't you mean, 'fluff you'?” the bastard has the gall to outright laugh at him, and Tony drags a hand down his face, as he's leaving with his cup of coffee.

“Go live with other people, they said. It will be fun, they said.”

Complaining all the way down to the garage to no one in particular, Tony chooses a car and makes his way to the office.

Honestly, Fluff This.

*+~

To be fair, the thing with the coffee machine could have been much, much worse.

Like the first time Tony decides to “upgrade” the dang thing and it ends up with a very human sounding voice.

It scares the shit out of Phil and Clint, who just arrive in the communal kitchen, early one morning after a nearly sleepless night, and a split second, startled curses and a very quick movement later Steve blinks at the steaming pile of machinery and carefully asks, “Phil, did you just taser the coffee machine?”

“It had it coming.” Phil says, eyes still a bit wide and chest heaving.

Clint puts away the knife he just pulled out of thin air and, very eloquently, asks, “_Why in the fresh fuck_ do we need a coffee machine that _talks_? _Why_?”

“Tony.” Steve shrugs, looking apologetically. Sadly, in this household, it explains _a lot_.

*+~

Maybe, but only maybe, he can't be sure, this is part of Tony's revenge for what the two of them call the “Exorcist incident” and that no one else even knows about for weeks.

To be fair, Clint doesn't mean to scare anyone, hence the whole “I'll do this at 3am in an empty stairwell because who will be using it when everyone takes the elevator anyway?”

On the other hand, Tony does have a habit of pacing up and down the stairs when he's thinking and needs to move outside his workshop. At 3am in an empty stairwell because who the fuck would even be there at this time?

Which naturally leads to a near disaster.

Tony taps away on his tablet, mumbling into his goatee-turned-messy-beard and looks up just in time to see – something – round the corner from the top of the stairs. He stops in his tracks, stares and then, in the dark there is a _thing_ and it looks vaguely human, what with its limbs bent backwards in unnatural ways, back down, on all fours, crawling down the stairs.

Tony will deny that the high pitched, terrified, loud scream ever left his throat. He will deny it until his dying day, but it does and it it's met with a surprised blink.

“Huh, you could synchronize horror movies.”

“Clint?! What the FUCK, why – what even? Why the HELL would you do this?!”

“It's a good workout.”

“I have a heart condition you fucking mozzarella stick!”

“To be fair I didn't think anyone would be here at this time.” He folds upwards, until he stands, a few steps over Tony who still looks like he just seen a ghost.

“Sorry?”

Tony is still clutching his chest, the tablet by his feet, thanks to his good quality work without even a scratch.

“Don't.” he fixes him in a halfhearted glare. “Don't ever mention that scream to anyone and we're good.”

Clint grins. “Deal.”

At least he waits to laugh his ass off when Tony is around the next corner.

When a block of moving stairs miraculously appears in the gym, no one mentions anything, but Clint just _knows_ and he can't help cackling to himself while he uses it, in board daylight while he's working out down there.

True to his word, he didn't say anything to anyone about the “incident” but shamelessly uses the opportunity to make fun of Tony whenever the two of them are alone. He may have to search his stuff for hidden booby traps at this point.

As it turns out, it's Tony himself who can't keep his big mouth shut and spills it on the dinner table.

Clint ends up under it when he slides down his chair, laughing hard enough to have tears running down his face, way, way too amused by the whole thing.

A week later, a cold, soulless but very human sounding voice emerges from the coffee machine early in the morning – the thing doesn't survive very long.

The next model may be unable to talk, but it sure communicates with beeps. It is a little bitch.

*+~

“Oh, Hi. Help me. Please. It's been hours.”

Bruce Banner is currently squashed up next to a sleeping Thor on the couch. He's holding a pen and a notepad, still managing to get some work done while Thor is clutching him like a overgrown teddy bear and Bruce only looks _slightly_ more rumpled than usual.

One does not simply wake up the God of Thunder when he wants to cuddle. They all know this.

It's kind of cute, and honestly, waking someone who fell asleep on you is just a giant dick-move, so.

Clint and Phil manage to untangle and pull the scientist free, who quickly thanks them while he runs for the bathroom.

A second later, Phil is pulled down and squeezed to an inch of his life by Thor, who happily snuggles closer and drops his head on Phils lap. He shakes his head, grinning, and pats the heavy blond head. Clint giggles all the way to the kitchen, leaving his husband on the couch.

Sooner or later, all of them have ended up in this very position. More than once.

Never forgotten is the day where Tony was desperate enough, needing a bathroom and unable to wake Thor up, no matter how much he poked and talked and swore. Desperate enough to start swearing loudly in Italian, much to everyone elses amusement, because they'd never seen that happen before. It's still a running joke.

Besides, they don't really mind. All of them need some love now and again, and Thor will always happily cuddle with anyone and everyone, no questions asked.

*+~

Having the team around, sharing good days together and being able to _laugh_, it helps a lot.

They've even seen enough of each others bad days by now to help make them better, or at least keeping their friends company when things do not look brighter at all.

The worst days still come, and they linger around.

More often than not, Clint startles awake in the dead of night, shaking, sweating, screaming or crying. It takes a while to calm down, even with Phil pressed close to his side, wrapped around him, with gentle hands that offer comfort.

Even months after Phil came back, months and even years after the battle and everything else, it keeps breaking open old wounds.

The scarred bite on his shoulder _burns_ some nights, long after it is healed, and those are the nights where Clint ends up hiding in the bathroom. It's those nights where every bit of human contact is too much, and even Phil in the room is too much for him to stand. He's hurting for more than one reason those nights, and he ends up sleeping in the cold, hard bathtub, falling apart all over again. He comes out hours later, unable to talk and only allowing small moments of physical contact.

Phil lies awake more nights than he sleeps.

Insomnia is an old, unloved friend, and it always comes back. Memories of surgeries, magical spears and Tahiti keep mixing up, weeks and months alone in a hospital bed with no one around to keep him company.

No one around to touch him in more than a distanced, professional way to treat injuries.

No one around to listen or offer any form of comfort. It's come to the point where he doesn't know which parts are real and which parts are only his imagination gone wild. Those months alone in medical have been the worst of his life, and that is saying something.

Phil would have willingly taken being held in a warehouse and tortured all over again, any day over this. Captivity and torture he can fight and deal with. But being lost and alone, hurting in a strange room... It leaves him shaking and sleepless.

Thankfully, Clint is close most nights. He holds him through the storm, slowly stroking his hair and talking to him in a low voice. It helps him sleep for a short while, until one or both of them wake up from a nightmare and it all starts over again.

Some nights, Clint needs to disappear into the bathroom, and while Phil understands, being alone still hurts.

It is after one of those nights that they talk. Both of them are dead tired, pale and with dark smudges under their eyes. They are wrapped up in blankets, holding each other close, but they're still freezing.

Phil keeps his face pressed into his husbands blond mop of hair, unwashed and a messy disaster from tossing, turning and passing out in the bath tub with his hands fisted into it.

“I want to help you, but I don't know how. Just... I don't know.” He tightens his hold around Clint a little bit.

“We're both so fucked up. I want to help you and be there for you. I want it so bad, but I just can't. Not enough. And I'm scared shitless of losing you.”

Speaking is hard, and his hands are anxiously tracing invisible patterns on Phil's back while his face is pressed into his shoulder. He doesn't want to have this conversation, not at all. But they need to, because otherwise they might lose each other without meaning to.

The thought hurts, and he closes his eyes, takes a few deep breaths to stop himself from crying any more.

“We need help. I love you Clint. So much.”

“I love you, too.”

A day later, they sit in front of Dr. Patricia Langer, hand in hand and listening to her calm and friendly voice. She is a short woman in her mid-fifties, bright red glasses pushed back into her graying curls. The psychiatrist has helped Clint for many years now, and he is comfortable with her. Being able to still see her, not having to search for another shrink when the last time was such a nightmare for Clint, is a godsend. Knowing about this situation, Dr. Langer is happily willing to help the both of them as a couple, as well.

*+~

“Hmmh? Where'r you goin'?” Phil slurs half awake, way too early for his taste. It's Sunday, for fuck's sake.

“Kitchen. I have a hot date with the oven, your mom and a bunch of dough.” Clint replies, smiling at the disgruntled noise, and flopping back down onto the bed to snuggle Phil for a moment longer, who wraps his arms around him and refuses to let go for some time.

When he finally arrives downstairs much later, Phil is greeted with the heavenly smell of coffee, baking and a room full of people he loves.

Today is going to be a good day.


End file.
